


A Reasonable Expense

by agent85



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, angst and pain, so much pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 06:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4554039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent85/pseuds/agent85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma emerges from the rock, but not everything comes back with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Reasonable Expense

**Author's Note:**

> Like many of you. I've been really worried about Jemma's fate after the season two finale. Try as I might to stay positive, I've come up with some worst-case scenarios. Here is one.

He looks at her and expects so much.

She recognizes him, of course. She still knows him. His birthday, his preferences, his IQ, and his performance scores are all tucked away neatly in her brain. She'd been cataloging him before. She has indexed the timbre of his voice when he speaks to Coulson, to Johnson, to his mother. He has a different sound and expression for each of them, and she has studied the language of him.

She is the perfect translator.

But these feelings she's supposed to have—she remembers them, of course. She remembers everything. But it's like seeing the surface from underneath waves. There's a stirring and churning, but it's far above her. She is in a place that is hazy and quiet.

He stirs the quiet when he looks at her. She can interpret his movements to discover the impatience he's trying to hide. It's the way he wrings his hands and fidgets. He rubs at the fabric at this thighs like he can blot the silence out. She will soon have to find a way to appease him.

He is, after all, very valuable. His intelligence is rare enough, but it's been nurtured and applied with unparalleled care and precision. He is priceless. He requires a lot of maintenance, as expected, and that was a primary function of her former self. She will need to continue to nurture his talents if she intends to increase his productivity.

But romance? Romance would be a waste of resources. The time and energy required alone would be . . . unsustainable. She will have to manage his expectations.

Then he turns to her and asks, "Who are you?"

She knows that the question has been rattling around in his brain for a while now, likely from the moment she emerged from the Source, and she understands that her answer is critical. A wrong answer might cause him to reject her, and where would she go? She knows biochemistry and him.

Being exiled by him would likely lead to exile by his colleagues, which would severely complicate her chances of survival. Perhaps fulfilling his deeper emotional needs would be a reasonable expense, after all.

"Who do you want me to be?"

She will need to watch him to judge his honesty, because he is known to lie, even to himself. He lets out a sigh as he rubs his hands together. The question seems to have pained him.

"How about . . ." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "How about a friend?"

She narrows her eyes at him,

Friend.

She has been a friend before. To him. She has been his friend more than she's been anything else. But the word means so many things, and he must know that. He must be aware that she has changed. 

If anyone understands change, it must be him.

And if he understands that, then maybe what he needs is not a lover with his old friend's face. It's quite possible that he's willing to settle for an ally.

She can be his ally.

It really would require very little.

She nods at him, slowly, to show him that she does not take this lightly. "I can accommodate that request," she says, and offers her hand. He shakes it with a gravity that seems odd for him.

And something else is odd, too. Something about the shift that happens when his skin slides out of her grasp. It's like a stirring in her heart, like a rustling on the calm ocean floor.

Her fingers reach out again, powered by a curiosity she can't explain. She touches the stubble on his cheek, then cups his jaw. This is very curious, indeed.

His hand covers hers, and when she looks into his eyes, she sees that there is an ocean in him, too. His face is blank, but his thumb glides over her knuckles.

"Friends," she whispers.

"Friends."

Something is pulling her towards him, and maybe it's his eyes. Maybe it's the way he seems determined to let her be. She tries to calculate what it all means, and the answer seems to be that she requires nurturing, too. It's a preliminary conclusion. It will require further testing.

For the meantime, though, it appears that friendship is even less of a cost than she anticipated.

He smiles, and lowers her hand to rest on counter top.

"Back to work," he says.

Yes, of course.

Work. 

**Author's Note:**

> I regularly post sneak peeks and general ramblings about my writing on [my tumblr](http://agent-85.tumblr.com/tagged/Writings%20of%20Agent%2085).


End file.
